Turkish Police on Friday detained almost a dozen MPs from the country’s main pro-Kurdish party, including its two co-leaders, as eight people were killed in a deadly car bombing blamed on Kurdish militants.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag appeared before judges in the city of Diyarbakir who would decide whether to remand them in custody, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
As the hearings got underway, a blast by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) struck outside a police station nearby in the Baglar district of Diyarbakir, Turkey’s main majority Kurdish city.
Eight people were killed, including two police, and over 100 wounded, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced, updating an earlier toll, saying that the PKK had again showed its “ugly face”.
The arrest of the HDP co-leaders along with nine other MPs, is a \major escalation of a crackdown on leading pro-Kurdish politicians in the wake of the failed military coup in July.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Twitter she was “extremely worried” over the detentions and would call a meeting of EU ambassadors in Ankara.
Demirtas was detained at his home in Diyarbakir in the early hours while Yuksekdag was detained in Ankara. Yuksekdag was then brought to Diyarbakir where the investigation is centred.
The detention of the 11 MPs appears to be part of a large-scale operation against the HDP, which is the third largest party in the Turkish parliament with 59 seats and the main political representative of the Kurdish minority.
Demirtas and Yuksekdag had been targeted by several separate probes over the last months but this is the first time that either has been detained.